Page 39 of At His Beck & Call

“Thank God,” she says, stepping over a box and coming to greet me. “You’re here so early!”

“I wanted to get the final folders completed,” I say. “I know you mentioned they need to be sent today. I wasn’t sure what time.”

She raises an eyebrow and then nods. “Well, that’s true, but you’re already ahead of that. We don’t need to send them until the end of the day, and I could use your help with all this instead.”

“Of course. What’s going on?” I ask.

“Carmen Reynolds. New client,” Adelaide says, sounding decidedly irritated. “I can’t believe they’ve sent all this so soon. Usually, there would be a grace period before Mr. Heath can meet with her, but instead, they’ve just transferred it all to this floor.”

“What is it, though?” I ask, staring as a huge man walks by carrying three archive boxes at once.

“It’s the Reynolds information. She’s in her seventies, and everything looks like hard copies. This is all her tax information,” she says, waving to some files that are stacked four feet high. “Then property deeds, valuation reports, investments, and offshore accounts. You name it, they’ve got it.”

“Wow, this is nuts. I think if I had to list all my assets, it wouldn’t even fill a single page, let alone fifty boxes.”

Adelaide lets out a bark of laughter at that. “Me neither. Well, we had better get going. The man in there is Noah Finnigan, by the way. He’s one of the junior associates they’ve assigned to the case. If you’re not sure where to find something, ask him. He’ll tell you what’s a priority, and I’m going to manage the deliveries so they don’t all end up in the hallway.”

“Can I get you a coffee before I start?” I say, taking off my coat and hanging my bag on the rack.

Adelaide gives me a small smile. “Oh. Well, if you’re going to the kitchen, I’d love a green tea.”

“You got it,” I say, then move to the door and knock. Noah looks up at me. He has a thick head of brown hair that flops over his eyes endearingly, and large green eyes above lips curved into a perpetual smile.

“Do you want a coffee?” I ask.

“Oh my god, yes. That would be awesome,” he says, shoving a pen behind his ear. “Are you Melissa?”

“Lissa. Yep. I’ll be back to help you in five minutes.”

“Thank you.” He gives me a grin, his eyes sliding down over my body very briefly before he turns back to what he was doing. I can’t help noticing that he’s the opposite of Oliver, small, lithe, and cheerful. I’ve only seen Oliver truly smile once, and that was when he’d just come all over my body.

Clearing my throat, I turn back to Adelaide and head toward the kitchen.

When I return and hand her the tea, Adelaide is looking somewhat less put-together. The boxes are piling up, and it’s becoming obvious that we won’t have enough space for them.

“Mr. Heath is not going to like this,” Adelaide says, wringing her hands together in front of her as she looks over the mess the delivery guys have left. “He likely wasn’t expecting all of this so soon.”

“Let me go and help Noah and see if we can reconcile some of it,” I say. “The conference table isn’t full yet. We can always put the ones in here at the end of it, and on some of the chairs. I’ll make sure the room’s available for the week.”

Adelaide huffs irritably, but at least she stops twisting her fingers in front of her in a panic.

“Wow,” I say as I walk inside and hand Noah his coffee.

There’s barely enough space to walk to the other end of the room. It’s not just archive boxes either, but old-fashioned expanding files I haven’t seen since college, with thousands of handwritten notes and Post-its sticking out all over the place.

Noah steps back, sipping the coffee and groaning loudly, but, unlike Adelaide, he doesn’t look panicked; his eyes are shining with excitement.

“I’ve always wanted to do a divorce like this.”

I can’t help laughing at how thrilled he sounds. “Thank god people’s marriages fall apart, right?” I say jokingly.

“Totally. Thanks for the coffee, by the way. Are you new? I’ve worked here for a few months and don’t remember seeing you before.”

“I only started a couple of days ago. Lissa Davenport.”

“Noah Finnigan. Nice to meet you. What would you like to tackle first?” he says. He gives me a big smile. There’s something about him that helps me to relax, as if he’s on top of things despite the chaos.

“What would you like me to do?”